


das Es

by worddoodles



Series: MiniMegs Week 2019 [1]
Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: But the third chapter is pure soft romance, Christmas, Conjunx Endura, Gratuitous Uses of Alfred Tennyson's In Memoriam A. H. H., Grief/Mourning, I'll apologize ahead of time for my melodramatic writing style, Instead of expecting angst I guess you should just expect a sense of melancholy?, M/M, Post-Transformers: Lost Light 25, Second chapter definitely edges more towards angst than melancholy, The only couple on the Lost Light who talk dirty about punctuation, Warning for violence and internalized prejudice/self-hatred in the second chapter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-13
Updated: 2019-08-18
Packaged: 2020-08-23 05:00:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20237137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/worddoodles/pseuds/worddoodles
Summary: On the duplicate Lost Light in another universe, Megatron and Minimus Ambus try to just be, together.Alternatively titled: "Acts of Intimacy."





	1. Doubt

_The time draws near the birth of Christ:_

_ The moon is hid; the night is still;_

_ The Christmas bells from hill to hill _

_Answer each other in the mist._

_Four voices of four hamlets round,_

_ From far and near, on mead and moor,_

_ Swell out and fail, as if a door _

_Were shut between me and the sound:_

_Each voice four changes on the wind,_

_ That now dilate, and now decrease,_

_ Peace and goodwill, goodwill and peace, _

_Peace and goodwill, to all mankind._

_-_

The crew of the _Lost Light_ decided that it was Christmas Eve. This was, as per usual, a spontaneous decision but spontaneous by necessity perhaps; they were still strangers in the new universe, unable to tell how they were supposed to measure time and space in relation to their past universe. For all they knew, holidays as a concept did not exist at all in this new place and time.

Magnus had tried broaching that very idea with Rodimus, and he tried his best to not mention that he thought a universe without such raucous, materialistic celebrations would make perfect sense and sounded lovely, but of course Rodimus had rolled his optics—fondly—and rejected the possibility outright.

“It doesn’t even matter. Our world, our rules, Mags,” Rodimus had said.

“This universe is not our possession, Rodimus,” Megatron interjected quietly.

“You’re lucky it’s just us three right now because the irony of _you_ saying that—” Rodimus had cut himself off. “Sorry, sorry, back to the point,” he continued. “I meant, just because we’re somewhere, some when, whatever you want to call it, new doesn’t mean we have to leave everything from the old universe behind. If the crew wants to keep Christmas, let them have it.”

Magnus did not want to argue, exactly, but a couple hundred concerns about allowing the crew of the _Lost Light_ to do whatever they pleased surfaced in his processor nonetheless.

“And I thought you two liked putting up Christmas decorations together?”

It was silent after that.

Magnus wished they had given him more time to physically and mentally prepare. The last-minute timing of this decision made it appear to Magnus that he only really had two options for how he should spend that Christmas Eve, and he agonized over them both, and when his mind whispered another third option, he felt even more anxious. He decided, with a great bit of reluctance, to go and hover around Swerve’s bar that night where the main Christmas party for the crew was to be held.

Magnus presented the few gifts he had managed to scramble together—clearer labels for Swerve to use on the air filters of his bar, new locking mechanisms for Ratchet and Drift’s hab-suite—and then occupied himself by watching over everyone else drinking and laughing and yelling while the compulsion to break the entire party up trembled beneath his armor.

Magnus was not one for hyperbolic imagery, but even he could almost see the nervous wonder still electrifying the air of the ship. The success of their jump to a parallel universe and the resulting high of that breakthrough, the curiosity about this new world, and the excitement of their future had not worn off for most of the crew. Maybe “worn off” was also too strong of a word choice because Magnus could not say he had lost that strange lifting sensation he too felt knowing that he could still be with the _Lost Light_ crew, but with each passing day, concerns crept into his mind and conditioned his earlier hope into something more ambivalent.

He felt comfortable with Rodimus, Drift, and Ratchet around him, all acting as happy as they’d ever been, but he could not help his impulse to squirm just a bit in his seat, to look up and around the bar as if he would see someone in particular. His recent ambivalence always unsettled him, he supposed. He felt as though he was waiting for something he could not describe, and that ambivalence weighed most heavily on him that night for some reason, molding a sort of emptiness inside him that was on the verge of being filled—but being filled with what?

Magnus clutched his memo pad to his side and wondered if he had drunk too much already.

“Where is Megatron?” Magnus heard himself ask.

Rodimus shrugged and downed another shot. “Don’t know. His hab-suite, I guess.” He snorted and then said, “Probably doing something mopey. Old habits die hard.”

“Maybe,” Drift added. Magnus glanced at the space where his and Ratchet’s arms touched and then looked away.

“I think old clichés like that die harder though,” Drift mused. “It’s a new day in a new universe. No more of the old rules. We can try our best to becoming whoever or however now, old, new, or something else. Right?” He raised his glass up a bit, and the others cheered loudly. Magnus looked down at his memo pad `and frowned harder. The third option that had crept into his processor earlier reared back, and without panic or relief, he quickly typed out a message.

The prompt reply was familiar and prodded him into telling his friends that he would have to excuse himself for the night. Their (mostly) sincere well wishes made him think about what Drift had said about everyone becoming who they wanted to be with the new universe, and that made him—well, Magnus, was certain he was tipsy now at least.

That realization should have made him turn back around to go to his own suite and call it a night, but he found himself firmly planted in front of the doors to Megatron’s own hab-suite, his frame still and expectant.

Megatron came to greet him immediately, his expression as serious as ever, but his face was filled with that cool warmth it always seemed to have ever since Magnus had heard him utter the words, “I’ve not seen you in _centuries_.”

“Minimus,” he said. “Come in.” And Magnus did without hesitation.

“I have to apologize for not being with the rest of the crew tonight,” Megatron admitted slowly. He was walking towards a personal storage unit, his gaze purposeful. “I was completely unprepared for anything like this, unfortunately.” Magnus was not a smiling type of bot, but he did sometimes feel the impulse to smile; this was one of those times.

“As did I,” Magnus replied. He stood in the middle of Megatron’s room and once again found himself thinking about the emptiness-yet-to-be-filled as he watched Megatron search through his storage unit for something. “I had so little time to plan that I had to gift Rodimus one of my volumes on the history of Nyon. He did not seem very appreciative. I suppose I should not have expected him to suddenly be interested in reading anything besides gossip news, though.”

“Let me guess,” Megatron said dryly. “He also didn’t give you or anyone else any gifts either.” He shook his head while still carefully considering whatever he was looking for. “I’m not much better, considering I couldn’t get anyone any gifts either. Except—” and by the way he straightened, Magnus could tell he had found whatever he was looking for, “I actually do have something I have wanted to give you.”

Megatron held out a small device. It was, Magnus realized gradually, a pad, but it looked slightly different to the ones he was used to reading from and writing on; it was a bit weathered, rounded in strange ways. He took it from Megatron, careful so that they would not touch, and opened the content to see the title, _A Compilation of Earth’s Poetry. _

Magnus could not hide his surprise. “When did you get this?”

Megatron opened his mouth and then closed it quickly. There was something in that cool warmth Megatron put off that Magnus could not identify.

“Actually,” Megatron said finally, “I compiled it myself—while in the Functionist universe.”

Magnus knew he should have felt gratitude, or happiness, or some form of affection he had continually considered professional. Instead, a sense of doubleness momentarily overwhelmed him. Was he somehow back at the Worldsweeper, hearing a voice in his ear rumbling, “Were you expecting someone else?”, and his spark flaring with a passion—righteous anger and confusion, he’d thought at the time—it had never had before?

That sensation numbed quickly, thankfully. “Oh,” was all Magnus heard himself say. “Thank you.” He kept his optics focused on the surface of the pad and swiped through the different entries without really digesting them.

“Minimus,” Megatron said quietly. It sounded like he wanted to say something else, but he did not. Magnus continued to swipe through the poems and remained stiff, not looking at Megatron. Vaguely, Magnus was aware of Megatron moving and sitting heavily on a chair.

After some time, Megatron said, “Coincidentally, there’s a poem in there I’m quite fond of that is a sort of Christmas poem. Alfred Tennyson wrote it quite a while ago—at least in that universe. It was called _In Memoriam A. H. H_.”

Magnus quickly found the poem he was talking about. It was long, and by the first couple of lines Magnus could tell it had much to do with Earth’s religious culture. Yet some of the first lines also made his spark jump a bit; “Forgive my grief for one removed” melted into the lines “Forgive these wild and wandering cries,” and for a brief moment Magnus remembered Mederi, a convenient image of Dominus, and the bittersweet ponderings of second chances. He felt himself tremble under the armor again and had to remind himself to stay steady.

Magnus took a deep breath and said, “By what criteria do you judge this a Christmas poem?”

Megatron huffed out a chuckle. “Perhaps it was not correct to call it a Christmas poem, no. Christmas does figure into the plot, however.” He gestured at Magnus to hand him back the pad, and Magnus did so, still as careful as ever. Megatron swiped to a particular section and handed the pad back to Magnus gingerly. Magnus picked up from the spot Megatron had focused on.

_This year I slept and woke with pain,_

_ I almost wish'd no more to wake,_

_ And that my hold on life would break _

_Before I heard those bells again:_

_But they my troubled spirit rule,_

_ For they controll'd me when a boy;_

_ They bring me sorrow touch'd with joy, _

_The merry merry bells of Yule._

“Hm,” Minimus hummed softly. He circled the words “sorrow touch’d with joy” with a finger and murmured, “You’ve been thinking about that today, then? The Functionist universe?”

Megatron’s optics widened then relaxed as he stared into space with resignation.

“Among other things,” he answered.

Minimus looked closely at Megatron for the first time that night.

“Who did you think of when you read this?” Minimus asked.

Megatron did not answer.

“I think of,” Minimus said, thoughtful, “Verity. Verity Carlos. She introduced me to Earth’s poetry in the first place, after all. She was not a fan of any of it, of course. She considered it a waste of her time, a form of torture devised by her world’s education system. She also introduced everything Christmas-related to the Autobots, to my great misfortune.

“I wonder if she ever had to—if she ever will—read this poem. I also wonder if she is also celebrating Christmas. Or…”

The emptiness waiting inside of him felt suspiciously similar to Minimus waiting to see if Megatron would answer his question, he realized. Yet Megatron still had not interrupted, although he did appear to be listening attentively to Minimus’s ramblings. And speaking of ramblings—

“I suppose the more obvious person I think of has to be Dominus. At least I _know_ I’ve lost that and can’t get it back. Even if we did run into an alternate version of him, everything was said at Mederi—but I guess you don’t know that—and that wouldn’t be my brother anyways, would it? It hurts, of course it does, but it’s a hurt that’s past, and one that I’ve lived with even before I knew he was really gone.”

Minimus found it hard to stand upright in the armor and slumped down into another chair. Megatron appeared concerned and lurched forward slightly in his seat as if to help him sit but did not actually touch him.

“It’s hard to explain, but I also think about everyone else now—the _Lost Light_, Rodimus, all of our friends—our family. We’re alive and fine now, but isn’t it strange to look back and think that who we were originally might not be—indeed, almost certainly aren’t fine? You are—well, you would be dead like Dominus.”

There must have been something accusatory in Minimus’s tone because now Megatron rushed to say, “I hurt you. You have every right in the world to be angry at me until the end of time, and I know I have to accept that.”

Megatron stopped again. Minimus wondered what his expression—what Ultra Magnus’s expression—looked like.

“Neither of us,” Minimus said, at first shaky and then after a pause, he began again more firmly, “neither of us broke the morality lock. Why is that, you think? Why can everyone else on board still be so—so happy? But we can’t?”

They could only stare at one another, and Minimus searched Megatron’s red optics—always so lonely, and always all-too much like a mirror—and then abruptly felt himself return to reason. The specter of ambivalence had evidently chosen to end its possession of him without any notice, and now Magnus was suddenly much too hot, and he had to take a moment to keep himself from sputtering in his apologies.

“I must have had too much to drink tonight. This has been terribly unprofessional of me, if you will excuse—”

“I thought of too much,” Megatron cut him off. “I thought of everyone on the _Lost Light_, even the bots who put everything on the line just to see me dead. Especially them, perhaps. I wondered if Rodimus would ever really try to come back for me, until it seemed to be the only thing I could think of, and then it wasn’t. I thought about what it would look like if you all ever reached Cyberutopia, but more often I thought about what would happen if you didn’t.

“Time passed, and I began to think more about the bots I had to see die under my hands, but this time not from my own violence, but instead from my own ignorance, or my own bad timing, or my outright helplessness. I had to think of—of Terminus, and then Impactor. Orion…” 

Megatron shook his head, and Magnus wondered if this was the kind of dully surprised, aching look of appearing just-a-little-lost he also projected whenever anyone brought up Dominus. It really had been centuries. He relaxed back in his seat at that thought, but then quickly tensed up again at Megatron’s next words.

“Of course, I thought of you.”

Magnus could not tell now if he was either too warm or too cold looking at Megatron, who held his gaze steadily, with the distance between the two somehow latent.

“I wondered,” Megatron began quietly, “if you and Rodimus decided together to have left me there. That thought confused me, but I tried to accept it. We had an excellent professional relationship, but of course that did not obligate you to—well. It would be too hypocritical of me to hold it against anyone who thought it was best if I didn’t exist in the world I had caused so much pain in.”

Magnus realized, with a start, that he had hurt Megatron, too.

“I had moments where I would think I was forgetting to send you something important: an updated daily schedule, a report on the latest infraction policy, or a reply to a memo; then it would come to me that you weren’t there with me. I wondered if I would ever find someone like you to listen to me recite lines again, or if I’d ever have time to talk about verse with anyone ever again.

“After so much time, I was horrified to realize that I couldn’t completely remember what your face looked like. I could at least always call to mind your facial insignia, but I wished I could form in my mind your mouth as it spoke with me, or your eyes looking to mine.

“That thing you were telling me before that you said was hard to explain—it is hard to say to others who do not feel it, I know, especially now on this ship. I felt it on the _Last Light_ as we came out of the portal, and I realized where we were but could not be sure of the when and the how.

“Then I finally got to see you again, the face that was slowly slipping away.”

Megatron finally looked away from him, and for a moment, Magnus had the absurd thought that Megatron felt as skittish as he did in that moment, that he too could sense that something waiting in the air in his hab-suite.

“Maybe,” Megatron said, “that something that kept us from opening the talismans is something we’ll never be able to change about ourselves. Maybe…”

They looked at each other again, briefly this time, both most certainly shy.

_It will be_, Minimus decided.

“I have a gift for you as well,” Minimus announced. “If you would like, I have it just wrapped back in my hab-suite…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm just now realizing the ending of this chapter might sound a little more risqué than intended lmao. 
> 
> Anyways, idk how to even explain what this is except that of course I have to pay tribute to the only two bitches in this house that I ever stanned for MiniMegs Week. 
> 
> The entire work is me trying to follow the AU prompt for the week in very loose terms by setting it in the parallel reality post-Lost Light. This first chapter is also combining the holidays/family/poetry prompts, too, although I will warn that the other two chapters make vague reference to Christmas-like holidays too because MiniMegs is my Lifetime Christmas Special OTP.


	2. Hope

_Again at Christmas bells did we weave_

_ The holly round the Christmas hearth;_

_ The silent snow possess'd the earth, _

_And calmly fell our Christmas-eve:_

_The yule-clog sparkled keen with frost,_

_ No wing of wind the region swept,_

_ But over all things brooding slept _

_The quiet sense of something lost._

_…_

_Who show'd a token of distress?_

_ No single tear, no mark of pain:_

_ O sorrow, then can sorrow wane? _

_O grief, can grief be changed to less?_

_O last regret, regret can die!_

_ No — mixt with all this mystic frame,_

_ Her deep relations are the same, _

_But with long use her tears are dry._

_-_

Magnus—_Minimus_ was still trying his best, at the behest of those like Megatron, Rodimus, Drift, and Ratchet, to become more acquainted with the idea that he did not necessarily need the Magnus armor to live a full life; nevertheless, he still felt wretchedly bare and vulnerable without it on when they were visiting new planets, as was the case now.

When he sighed and shifted his weight from his left to his right side, Megatron finally spoke up, and Minimus still felt disoriented hearing his voice coming from a bot who was most certainly not sized like the absolutist Megatron of the past few centuries. 

“You’re fidgeting, Minimus.”

A sour part of him wanted to immediately argue back that he would never even think of fidgeting at an official event, but he was also not that deeply in denial. He knew his posture was lacking that night, and he was ashamed over it.

Minimus had to bite back another sigh and tried to avoid three silver limbs swinging his way as he replied, “Yes. I suppose I am still unsettled about being involved on an excursion like this one, considering—,” and he waved at the pulsating lights surrounding the pair as they hid away on a street corner. 

The excursion in question was a short visit to the city Rakot on a planet of organics. Well, it was a planet of cybernetically enhanced organics, really, with some groups still either incapable of or unwilling to be apart of the dominant cyborg lifestyle. 

One of the first practical problems the _Lost Light_ had to tackle after the high from their leap across the multiverse was: where were they going to procure fuel—for the ship and for themselves? Brainstorm had suggested early on that he could try to find a way to artificially replicate the supply they had at the time and then keep producing it en masse, but Perceptor had, with a newfound gentleness, shot that idea down. And he was right; as brilliant as Brainstorm was, there was a reason why the energon shortage back in their universe had not been solved in the way Brainstorm had suggested.

That left them in the very delicate situation of having to source some form of energon alternative, and they would have to find an ethical way of procuring it that would also hopefully not lead them into too big of a conflict. But those conditions were evidently difficult to meet for a crew of beings that had waltzed into this universe out of the blue without any obvious parallels to Cybertron in sight.

Eventually, after schmoozing at a local galactic mechanic’s convention, Lug and Anode brought up that they had learned that this planet, and particularly the very rich Rakot, was famous for inventing various types of fuel, and they were often willing to just give away those fuel types they considered “unfashionable” or “no longer on trend.” This caveat had already raised some alarm bells for Magnus, but Anode’s casual mentioning of Rakot as “a riot, literally; it’s kind of famous for them apparently,” made him that much more unwilling to go.

Megatron made the point to him, however, that they did not have the luxury of being picky, and while they should approach the place and its people with caution, they should at least poke around to see if Rakot was an option. That was, as expected of Megatron, perfectly reasonable, so he could not refuse.

There were two problems, however, that made this visit all the worse. The first problem was that some sort of huge public celebration was evidently rocking Rakot from the ground up. Minimus’s earlier hope that this universe would be one without such overwhelming displays were quickly dashed at the pack of spiraling, vibrating bodies of metal and flesh all around them, the booming of some sort of bass instrumental throughout the streets, and the streaks of artificial light flaring up ahead at all times. Needless to say, the news of this celebration made Minimus all the more determined not to be apart of the team to go to the surface of the planet.

The second problem was one that Lug could not stress enough; the people currently in power in Rakot seemed somewhat suspicious of bipedal organisms, and they could be downright hateful if you were bipedal and also happened to be larger than they were in size. Which, as it turned out, most Cybertronians were. Most Cybertronians except minibots. Like Minimus Ambus and not like Ultra Magnus.

“I’m sure it doesn’t help that the armor is back on the ship,” Megatron said, knowing. Minimus immediately stood upright and still.

“We could have needed it in case any of this gets out of control.”

Megatron’s responding hum sounded rightfully doubtful about that, and Minimus might have snapped out something to explain his logic, but instead he found himself blinking when he realized he was looking up too high and had to dip his head slightly down to see Megatron as he appeared in his smaller form thanks to mass displacement. When he saw Megatron’s slightly raised brow ridge at his confusion, Minimus could only huff and continue glaring out into the crowd of partiers who were maybe or maybe not singing.

Minimus was still not quite sure why Megatron had insisted on coming with him and the others to the surface. As far as Minimus was aware, mass displacement required quite a bit of his energy and was difficult to sustain over long periods of time. Not that Megatron ever showed that he was taxing himself, and not that Minimus was ungrateful for this decision, especially now. With a sensation approximately close to a spark murmur, Minimus had to admit that there was no one else aboard the _Lost Light _who could reduce his discomfort and feelings of smallness quite like Megatron could.

Just then, Minimus spotted Rewind and Tailgate winding through the crowds towards them.

“What have we learned?” Megatron asked as soon as they were within hearing distance.

“This is the Erete people’s winter solstice festival!” Tailgate shouted over the music. He appeared to be incapable of refraining from tapping one foot to the erratic beat flooding the night. “Weird, right? Even though they have an artificial sun now, and it apparently feels pretty hot for their species this season, they still do it this time out of habit! They make this red drink that they let everyone have and spill through the streets, they make sacrifices of something—don’t remember what they said exactly—in honor of the sun’s death, and they—”

“Not about the party, Tailgate. What did you learn about the central fuel market?”

“We learned that the central fuel market is apparently not as open to the world as others think,” Rewind said. He grunted and appeared for a second like he was going to tip over thanks to the wild movements of a couple—or possibly more than just a couple?—behind him. “Primus, I thought it’d be fun to come down and capture the atmosphere, but I’m getting a little too reminded of being on Ambustus, what with being treated like an object again by some Functionists-by-another-name!”

Minimus and Megatron exchanged a worried look.

“We can’t afford to waste time on a planet without any energon substitutes, so we might as well go then,” Megatron announced.

“I didn’t say they didn’t have any energon substitutes,” Rewind said. “The people here may not be nice, but they’ve also got terrible poker faces.”

“I’m not sure the word ‘faces’ is appropriate here, though,” Tailgate said, ducking his head around to see if they’d offended anyone.

“Eh,” Rewind dismissed. “The point is, when I kept showing around the formula that Brainstorm gave me, they sure got quiet and shifty for a bunch of people supposedly too wasted with joy to function. I think the real problem is that they implied there wasn’t a central market per se.”

“What does that mean? Is it not called the central fuel market?” Minimus asked, feeling an ache in his brain coming on.

“Colloquially, sure.”

Minimus cringed. 

“I got the feeling,” Tailgate added, “that the market is kind of just like a spread out group of sellers who all use the same symbol—maybe?”

“No, that’s the impression I got, too,” Rewind said, and he pulled up an image for Minimus and Megatron to see. It seemed to be the exterior of a building, and a faint geometric sigil was carved on the lower right side of the building. “Apparently, this place is a hot spot for fuel buyers, and we saw another place that experiments with fuel and they had this symbol, too.”

Minimus and Megatron exchanged another look, less easy to name.

“There are many other planets out there,” Megatron mused. “Some may be less trouble.”

“Could be,” Rewind said, “but we’re here now anyways.”

“Some of the people are jerks, sure, but what if we spend the next few weeks waiting out other planets and wondering if this one actually had what we needed?” Tailgate said, the dance in his step turning anxious. “I just want to make sure we’re all going to be okay,” he continued, almost too quietly for the others to hear him over the roar of the celebration.

It seemed it was up to Minimus to be the deciding voice, and he couldn’t help a twinge of resentment pinging through him. Personally, he really, really wanted to just head back to the _Lost Light_, and since Megatron was their captain, his opinion should be the final one always, right? But that was just his emotion talking really; he knew that, despite his own discomfort, it made the most sense to at least scout around a bit for the sake of the crew. And with a sigh, he said as much, without any mentioning of his own anxiety of course, to the three before him.

Thus, Megatron’s newfound propensity for democracy decreed that they would continue and look for buildings with that sigil on it.

“Are we going to split up, gang?” Rewind asked, and it took Minimus a second to realize that he seemed to be making some sort of joke—although how any of his suggestion was supposed to be humorous, he could not say. 

Megatron did not seem to think it was a humorous suggestion either, as he said, “Yes, if we want to cover more ground quickly, we will have to splinter off in two directions.” Rewind stammered something out, but then stopped, looking to Tailgate with exasperation.

“Just—come on, Tailgate,” he said.

Tailgate nodded, a bit confused.

“I’ll say this, however,” Megatron said before they could leave, “don’t waste too much of your time and energy looking so far. If, after looking, a dozen or so establishments don’t turn up what we need, turn right back around and wait for us. If you run into any trouble whatsoever, turn back around. If anyone so much as gives you a look—”

“Turn back around? We got it.” Rewind said, already turning to head northwards.

“I don’t think ‘looks’ is the right word, either,” Tailgate said, and then seeing Rewind already about to weave through the congregation of partiers, he called out, “Wait up!” and hurried after him.

Megatron and Minimus headed southwards, and after finding only one building with that symbol, with that building appearing condemned and long abandoned, Minimus’s mood was hitting an all-time low.

They were trailing somewhat aimlessly now further south, and Minimus had to duck to avoid some sort of golden twirling mechanism flying through the air. Minimus shouted so Megatron could hear, “Maybe your earlier reservations about staying were more intuitive than we thought.”

Megatron grumbled and glowered at a particular pack of Rakot citizens to their left, congregating on a raised platform, all proudly displaying their garish winter solstice fringe and glowing tattoos. If Minimus remembered correctly, those particular glowing tattoos designated these citizens as members of the dominant Erete group’s middle classes.

“Well, my reasons for wanting to leave are not as selfless as you might think,” Megatron admitted. He easily sidestepped a dancer who was moving far too erratically to be sober and kept his focus on the platform.

Minimus was struck, for the first time that night, with a chord of warmth. There it was. That elevated feeling he got in knowing that he was truly on the same page as Megatron. He moved his neck from side-to-side with some tenderness and was somewhat amazed that he did not ache as much as he usually did looking up at everyone constantly in his secondary form.

This motion, however, also let him watch some peculiar action going on in the distance.

There was a formation of a dozen or so Rakot citizens around a small triangular building, and even though it felt strange to think it in the midst of the heated chaos around them, Minimus had to admit that it certainly seemed to be a purposeful formation of people instead of the usual confused mess everywhere else, as they formed an arced column surrounding the building’s front. They did not have the tattoos that marked them as Erete, and they were all a peculiar shade of gray that Minimus had not seen on any other Rakot people before, but this formation of people dressed in fringe that resembled what he and Megatron were seeing before on the middle class, and they were throwing those same golden whirling mechanisms that seemed so popular this night directly at the building. Only—and Minimus’s optics widened when he saw and heard the first pop—these decorations, he realized, were, evidently, combustible. The crowd seemed to be taking turns aiming these things very close to, or sometimes, on the very building’s exterior walls, where the devices would blow in a display of bursting powder, sparks, and sometimes a small, brief, but somehow loud flame.

Minimus felt something prickle at the edge of his mind.

“Megatron,” he murmured, much too low to be heard. But Megatron was right at his side nevertheless, as Minimus had halted in his stride to watch, hypnotized by the distant display.

It took Minimus a second to realize that, somewhat obscured by the formation of the people throwing these devices, a trio of bipedal people who did not seem to have any discernible cybernetic anatomy were standing off to the side and watching this strange assault. Actually, Minimus corrected himself after seeing the way these people trembled and huddled close together, rocking back and forth as if uncertain whether they should run away or surge forward inside the building, perhaps they were not watching so much as they were stuck with nothing else to do. Their path, if they chose to run away, was being lightly blocked by three of the people throwing these small explosives, which they in particular seemed keen on throwing just a bit too close to the bipedal group for comfort.

“This is—” Minimus whispered, suddenly breathless, rooted to the spot by his own slowly dawning horror, a wave of images and memories from Ambustus Minor, from all over Cybertron really, rushing through him.

And then Minimus saw Megatron, his figure somewhat taller than before, stalking past him, towards that triangular building, and that prickling, dawning tension became an all-out alarm. It took him a second to register that Megatron was really about to intervene—_Oh, Primus, of course he would, _he kept thinking—and Minimus had to push himself to rush after Megatron, squeezing through the still jovial partiers who seemed, despite how loud and visible the assault happening only a couple dozen meters away was, completely oblivious to what was happening.

When he reached the organized crowd of assailants and saw Megatron already pushing past the three individuals blocking the ones who presumably owned the building, his panic sharpened.

He heard Megatron say something to the shaken, incensed assailants, saw him positioning himself in front of the confused, cowering owners, and moving himself as if to angle them out of the organized column of assailants from the side—but then the others, buzzing with their caustic, too-clear passion, shifted and began to circle around them, abandoning the building completely—Minimus surged forward and found his eyes locked onto one of the attackers holding something else besides one of those mini explosives, something that appeared to hiss with an energy that Minimus swore he’d felt before—and Megatron was no doubt fully aware of this, but he was instead pushing the innocents out of the way with as much force as he should be using to defend himself—so that Minimus was forced to clamp his hand around the one holding the weapon, yanking them back and off the ground almost, tearing through to where Megatron was, ducking low, sweeping out his foot to catch the gathering crowd off guard—then he felt a limb curl around his other leg, and he threw a punch that felt a little off and left his hand stinging, but it did something judging by the sound of a piercing squall, and now he was looking for Megatron again, who was bounding towards something, and Minimus felt something wrong, so—

So he slammed himself against the body of the weapon holder from earlier. They had hobbled back up at some point. He hit their front and side with as much force as he could muster in his secondary form. He was already exhausted just from the scuffle. He really was getting older, he supposed. He was so tired that he barely registered that old feeling of being punctured. And so he could only vaguely remember to hobble to keep somewhat upright, even if that would be a losing battle in the end. The numbness set in with surprising quickness.

He heard Megatron saying something, but his brain module was suggesting that consciousness was not his best bet right now, and because he was still rational, he chose to listen to it and promptly passed out.

-

Waking back up was not a pleasant experience.

In a way, Minimus had grown used to experiencing physical pain as a sort of phantom sensation through the Ultra Magnus armor. He felt injuries as if they were really made on his own body, but that was mostly down to his own close nerve connection to the armor. The pain he was used to was mostly mental, with the occasional stab to his secondary form.

Feeling pain in his real irreducible form was something fresh and nauseating.

He immediately curled in on himself and moaned, trying not to heave, his mind stuttering through questions but never quite finishing them.

Somewhere, Megatron’s voice reached him.

“Minimus.” His tone was calm—or not, as everything sounded a little milky to Minimus at the moment. “Minimus, I need you to listen to me as carefully as you can. I know you’re in a lot of pain right now, and what I’m about to say may be a bit alarming, but it would be better for everyone if you could have some peace of mind and cognizance.”

Minimus listened as well as he could but found himself increasingly distracted by the spasming he felt around his neck—hadn’t he been hit somewhere else?

“Minimus, I’ve had to remove some of your secondary armor, where the most serious wound was, but I think when you fell unconscious, something made contact with your neural cluster.”

_Bad_, Minimus thought.

“Again, try to remain calm, but the best way to reduce the pain right now would likely be transforming into your alt mode until I can give you enough energon to stabilize you.”

Minimus couldn’t even bring himself to think coherently at that. He could only lash out physically, throwing his arms out as if to ward off an attacker, but then the pain struck him all over again, and he had to curl back up.

“I know,” Megatron said. “I don’t want this to happen, and I understand that this is asking a lot, but if we want to get back easily, this is our only option. If you’d like, I can turn away and just tell you how to establish a transfusion line. It’ll take more time, but I don’t mean to intrude on your privacy, Minimus. I would never—”

Minimus wasn’t really listening anymore. He felt like he could only cry—and wasn’t that even more humiliating—but couldn’t be sure he could produce the moisture to actually let tears out. He burned all over from something beyond pain, and every part of his body itched. He hated, hated, _hated_ himself. Acting like a newspark still after all these centuries, pitching a fanatical fit because he’d ignored an obvious problem instead of dealing with it rationally, and even now lashing out at his superior because of it. The thought of transforming, though—the very _thought_ of it—

So he didn’t think. For the first time in eons, he impulsively alerted his transformation cog into spinning. And it felt terrible after so many years of disuse, as if he was crumpling in on himself. When he was finally in _that_ form again after so long, he still couldn’t shake the feeling of still being absent, outside of himself.

But Megatron was right; once he himself was no longer bipedal, the pain dulled to a vague throbbing, and he could see and hear clearly once again. They were alone, thank Primus. Minimus couldn’t tell where exactly they were, except it did not seem like one of the city’s alleys at least, as they were surrounded by four very dark walls.

Megatron was turned awkwardly to the side, caught between trying to honor his earlier offer and the fact that Minimus had not actually taken him up on it. He kept his optics on the wall, though, not turning to see Minimus in his alt mode at all. 

Minimus quickly blinked back the moisture that had gathered in his optics, tried to stand on all four legs, and promptly fell back over with a guttural whining sound.

Megatron couldn’t keep looking away at that. Minimus cringed back a bit as Megatron approached slowly, his case of medical supplies cracked open. He was torn between regret and then a childishly vindicated sense of spite when Megatron stopped at the sight of Minimus—at his discomfort or just his new form; really it didn’t matter to Minimus. He crouched down and approached again soon enough.

“Excuse my reach,” Megatron said softly. He was holding a patching material and a laser, and Minimus looked down at his side to see a gash that was at once ugly but also not the worst he’d endured at least. Reluctantly, Minimus rolled over to his other side to allow Megatron access. He jumped slightly feeling the coolness of Megatron’s hands just above his wound, not touching exactly, but so obviously right _there_.

Minimus glanced at the inside of Megatron’s kit, its supplies worryingly sparse, and remembered, with newfound urgency, why they had come here.

“Rewind and Tailgate—” he said, lurching forward, then wincing at the sting of the patching material coming in contact the energon leaking out of the wound.

“Their comm signals are scrambled,” Megatron murmured. “I tried to contact them on my way to finding a safe spot and heard parts of them telling me they had some sort of news, but they kept cutting in and out. I’m not sure they’re aware of what kind of situation we’re in. I’m not entirely sure what situation they’re in either.”

“Cyclonus and Chromedome must be beside themselves right now,” Minimus thought aloud.

Megatron stopped in his work momentarily to give him a peculiarly keen look, and then focused back on carefully stitching the patch to his wound with the laser, and Minimus did not want to think about what that look meant right now, so he didn’t.

Megatron had to place two fingers on the patch and then two fingers on Minimus himself to keep the patch in its right place evidently, and Minimus had to suppress a shiver. For so long, he’d loathed touch. In his alt form, with Megatron being the one to touch him after centuries of physical isolation—Minimus did not know what was happening with his nerves anymore.

“They have our energy signatures at least,” Megatron said, still focused on precisely moving the laser. Minimus could tell he was trying to affect a light tone, but it was not a particularly good attempt on his part. Megatron paused and took a breath, taking the time to wave vaguely around their surroundings.

“This is the inside of our first foray into the central fuel market. Seemed the best bet for us since it seemed like Erete and Gracia alike avoid the place like the plague.”

“Gracia…?” Minimus mumbled, trying to place the word.

“The Gracia were the ones who did this to you,” Megatron spat out, “and were after those workers. I recall reading they’re one of Rakot’s most infamous minority groups. When Anode spoke about rioting, I did not imagine she meant rioting in that form. Yet here we are. On another planet where civil war might as well be inevitable.”

Megatron had still not gone back to patching Minimus’s wounds, likely because his hands were visibly shaking. 

Megatron’s bitterness was contagious evidently, as Minimus could not help but add with a low growl, “This all does seem too familiar, doesn’t it? Maybe it was naïve to think we really had left our world behind for good.”

Megatron did not say anything to that. He closed his eyes for a second, opened them back up, and returned to stitching the last half of the patch on.

In the silence, Minimus’s nausea returned with a vengeance. He wanted desperately to be able to stand level with Megatron while he was helping him, and just that loss of dignity was enough to keep him internally writhing. He was torn between emptiness and something more disgusting and bloated remembering things from his youth: Dominus telling him, over and over again, that sometimes hiding and lying were necessary for the greater good, and the looks on the faces of the other members of House Ambus when the subject of beast modes came up.

He was so preoccupied with these memories, intruding on his consciousness like the weapon that had gotten him in this situation, that he did not realize Megatron had finished applying the patch until he saw him turn back to the case, looking intently for something else.

Megatron soon found whatever it was he was searching for, but by the grim set to his mouth, there was clearly something wrong. He turned around to reveal a thin tube for liquid transfusions, some quick stoppers, and an alarmingly small vial of energon. Never before had the issue of their energon shortage been so clear and serious to Minimus in that moment as he recalled Megatron telling him he could only transform back once he recovered enough of his energon supplies.

He felt his entire frame shaking, and his searing embarrassment could not force him to calm down.

“This is,” Megatron admitted, “not ideal.”

Minimus had to remind himself to blink back the tears gathering in his optics again.

Megatron’s halting reassurance that he had an idea only made Minimus’s despair writhe harder.

“If I had only been wearing the Magnus armor,” Minimus whispered.

Megatron blinked slowly and pointed out, as if speaking to an alien species, “You would have caused a full-scale riot in the whole city if you had come as Magnus.”

Minimus gritted his newly sharp teeth and let the first thing that popped into his head be his parrying response.

“For someone who claims he has been working on bettering himself for the past few centuries, you still have not lost that damned martyr complex,” Minimus bit out.

Megatron’s responding silence was loud and icy, and in the midst of his burning shame and anger, Minimus felt a part of himself drop beneath him, as though he had said a completely incoherent sentence out loud and had the audacity to act foolishly proud of it. But he could not bring himself to apologize.

“I won’t apologize for defending those who have been marginalized all their lives,” Megatron said in a hushed tone. “Even now, thinking back on who I was at my lowest, most monstrous moments, I would never apologize for intending bots like Soundwave and the Scavengers to have better lives. Even if I never actually gave them those better lives back then.” Megatron appeared momentarily lost, then cleared his throat, and frowned meaningfully down at Minimus. “You’ve read _Towards Peace._ You know I also wanted to help bots like—like Ravage.”

“I was never talking about that!” Minimus burst out. “Your idea of justice has never been the problem! It’s that you think only of consequences when they aren’t about to ruin your own ego. It always has to be about making sacrifices for the greater good through violence, death, self-annihilation—I thought you becoming a medic would make this clearer to you, but you should be trying to preserve life for the greater good, including your own life! Why wouldn’t you think about how it would affect the _Lost Light_, how it would affect _me_, when you’re putting yourself at risk like that? Because I am—”

But suddenly, Minimus couldn’t find what word he was looking for in his tirade, and he stared at Megatron, who gaped back, expression struck with some enigmatic emotion.

“I am—” Minimus tried again but found his confession lodged and stuck in his voice processor.

“Frightened? I know.” Megatron laughed hollowly. “I am too.”

Megatron sighed, his small smile pulling crookedly—out of frustration if Minimus had to guess. 

“Did you not know that it frightens me when you close off like you’ve done today? Like you close off a lot of days.”

Minimus did not know how to respond to that. His squirming of shame turned into something more viscerally small and sad. He looked away out of shame.

“But you were right,” Megatron admitted, his light tone somehow more sincere now. “We’re quite a pair.”

Inexplicably, Minimus wished for the soft brush of Megatron’s fingers again. He could go for anything to ground him in this bizarre siege of feeling welling up around the two.

“The idea that I had,” Megatron said quietly, “is a bit unconventional.” If Minimus didn’t know any better, he’d say Megatron was flushed. “I can give you some of my innermost energon.”

Minimus could swear his fuel pump stopped.

Minimus swallowed and tried his best to say aloud without devolving into hysterics, “Megatron, you—you don’t have to do that, I can just shut down for a bit again, you can carry me back to Ratchet, really you don’t have to do this for someone like me—”

“No,” Megatron interrupted him. “This isn’t actually something I’m being forced to do. If you want me to be really honest—even as it may hurt my terrible ego, as you will likely and should likely scoff at what I’m about to say—I’ve wanted to do this for you for a while now.”

Minimus’s silence was stunned.

Megatron took a shaky breath, his eyes shifting away from Minimus’s, “I will preface this by saying I am not attempting to practice my joke material with you. I am completely serious.”

Minimus looked doubtful.

“You are sublime,” Megatron said.

Minimus’s sense of disembodiment took on a very new tingling all of a sudden.

“You could be a sparkeater right now in front of me—and sometimes it’s really very much like facing a sparkeater—and I still wouldn’t be able to shake the feeling that every time I look at you,” Megatron said, and he paused, inhaling, “I am immensely thankful that you would just be in the same time and space as me.”

“Flattery won’t make me feel any differently about myself, you know,” Minimus said in spite of himself, the floating feeling in his mind and body still unwavering.

“I don't want to _make_ you feel any sort of way. I simply want to tell you how I see you. How I see you and I, actually. Perhaps that too is selfish, but I need you to know for my sake that even if you’re furious with me, seeing you fills me with a sense of relief. Speaking with you is like that moment after you are born, with comfort and gentleness and awe the only things you know.

“I’m also terrified.”

“Terrified,” Minimus asked, feeling his spark sink. “Terrified of me?”

“Not exactly.”

“Then what?”

“I don’t know.” And now Minimus could hear that terror in Megatron’s voice. It was scary to register, as Minimus could not remember if he had ever truly seen Megatron terrified before. Even when Tarn had appeared close to taking everything away from them, he had appeared more resigned to despair than anything else.

It struck Minimus that perhaps he was now feeling exactly what Megatron was feeling in that moment—that floating feeling, the renewed sense of something tender and new, and the ever-present fear of the unknown. But as the seconds ticked by, and Minimus looked at Megatron, really looked at him, the fear was gradually overwhelmed with Minimus’s realization that he had not really worried about his turbofox form in a while, and the tenderness took hold of him.

“Alright,” Minimus heard himself say, quietly at first, and then he repeated himself, more confidently this time, “alright. I think your idea makes sense.”

Megatron appeared caught off guard by his agreement. For the first time since Minimus had ever heard Megatron speak at all, Megatron stammered, “R—right.” 

Megatron carefully opened his chest compartment. Minimus could already see the soft green glow of Megatron’s spark illuminating the small gaps within him, and he found himself mesmerized at the sight of Megatron’s plain spark casing, with everything that it held inside. Megatron took one of his medical accessories and a small vial, pricked underneath his spark casing, and there was the sight of delicate purple liquid dripping quickly down, and Minimus followed each drip with his eyes. He did not let it drip long, quickly squeezing over where he had pricked, placing the vial gently down to the side, and applying a small tourniquet to the undersides of his spark casing. 

Megatron gazed at Minimus, his optics fervent.

“Turn your neck towards me?”

And Minimus consented, and then he felt both of Megatron’s hands fluttering by his beast form’s shoulders, and he had to suppress a gasp. Megatron was carefully pulling him closer to where he could see the back of his neck better, closing the distance between them.

Minimus felt the light sting of the tube entering his neck for only a moment. He was, at first, confused and disappointed when he felt seemingly nothing entering him. And then, warmth. Blissful, peaceful warmth. There was a feeling Minimus had grown to associate with his time on the _Lost Light. _And he was feeling it now very intensely as his entire body relaxed and melted inside a condemned old store building in a city that had earlier left him feeling trapped and hopeless, the _Lost Light_ orbiting somewhere far above.

He was weak with that gorgeous feeling. He could only envision himself and Megatron, floating above it all. It was just them.

That feeling was abruptly interrupted when both Megatron and Minimus heard their comms ring back online, the sound of Rewind chirping, “Hey, Co-Captain and Second-in-Command? You guys there? Where were you, the signal on your end was garbage—never mind that, you need to know—we’ve hit the jackpot!”

-

The jackpot was not an energon alternative. Brainstorm had provided Rewind with a formula to the thing that was, he said, vital to his original replication-of-their-original-energon plan.

When Megatron had inevitably chewed him out quite thoroughly for this deception, Brainstorm appeared unperturbed.

“Don’t underestimate me,” was all he had to say.

And, against all odds, he was right. After only a week’s time of waiting anxiously, Brainstorm had taken Rodimus, Megatron, and Minimus to his and Perceptor’s lab and shown the skeptical trio the first batch of perfectly replicated energon supplies.

Rodimus was elated, and Minimus and Megatron were begrudgingly impressed.

Minimus still found a way to punish him, though, swearing Perceptor to keep Brainstorm barred from their shared lab for a few weeks.

_It was for the best, _Minimus thought to himself. He was out of the Magnus armor, waiting outside First Aid’s suite, tapping his foot to an imaginary song in his head. And it really was their only option perhaps. Their first excursion to the city of Rakot was already too much of a headache to even contemplate the idea of return trips. Minimus couldn’t ever see himself returning to Rakot—even if he did not necessarily regret the trip now. 

First Aid’s suite door opened then, and he stepped out cautiously. He was regarding Minimus as if he had been possessed by something.

“Magnus,” he greeted.

“First Aid.”

“This request,” First Aid began, looking down to his memo pad. “I know you don’t make mistakes in writing, but I am surprised. Are you sure you meant an innermost energon sample extraction, or do you mean you need something else extracted? Did you catch something on that planet?”

“No,” Minimus responded, clutching the purple vial he had picked out especially for this occasion. “I meant what I said earlier.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh boy this one got away from me, end me lmao. This chapter was meant to combine the "war/battle/work/transformation" prompts for MiniMegs Week. The war theme ended up being only kind of obliquely referenced; I wanted to set up the parallels between my weird inserted OC (OP?) Planet's implied civil war that's a-brewing and of course the war at the heart of the Transformers franchise, but then kinda just lost that in the haze I guess. 
> 
> Thanks to everyone who read last chapter so much! I owe so much of my writing to everyone else in the fandom who've pioneered all the good MiniMegs vibes. And I feel kind of bad about how last chapter ended without resolution to what Minimus gave Megatron as a gift. I admit I was cribbing from Roberts' Twitter post last Christmas where he left it ambiguous what was in the purple gift box Minimus had wrapped. My personal headcanon, and thus maybe the answer for this story, is that it's either a book of poetry Minimus has been writing or it's Minimus's lovingly annotated copies of Megatron's works. But I'm sure someone else has better headcanons for that gift then me, so you can imagine what else it could be, and I say that's right too!


	3. Faith

_To-night ungather'd let us leave_

_ This laurel, let this holly stand:_

_ We live within the stranger's land, _

_And strangely falls our Christmas-eve._

_…_

_Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,_

_ The flying cloud, the frosty light:_

_ The year is dying in the night;_

_Ring out, wild bells, and let him die._

_…_

_Ring out old shapes of foul disease;_

_ Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;_

_ Ring out the thousand wars of old,_

_Ring in the thousand years of peace._

_Ring in the valiant man and free,_

_ The larger heart, the kindlier hand…_

-

A jaunty, reedy melody reverberated softly through the space that used to be Ten’s old vented quarters, where Minimus Ambus was tucked into a corner and tinkering patiently with an old artist’s brand of moldable metal. Minimus hummed faintly along to the tune, occasionally chiming in with the human woman vocalist, warbling, “There’s nothing sweeter—finer—when it’s nice and cold, I can hold….” A thick, plain thermal cover hugged his shoulders, and with each chip Minimus made to the metal in his hands, the cover slipped and slid up and down his upper arms. 

Snow was falling inside the _Lost Light_.

More specifically, the climate control function inside various crewmembers’ hab-suites, in an unprecedented manner, had recently malfunctioned, releasing a steady precipitation of ephemerally small crystals that blazed with cold. Rodimus dubbed these crystals “snow” and the overall malfunction “the snow-pocalypse,” and the rest of the crew went along with it. The group of bots primarily affected by the malfunction—with the exception of the immediately worried Minimus, who was incensed at the mess these crystals made in his space—were at first somewhat amused and fascinated by the admittedly glamorous sight of the twinkling, frosty flakes raining down around them. They were quickly disenchanted, however, when the cold these crystals leaked out began to affect them. 

Even now, after Minimus had long hidden away from his newly crystalline hab-suite, he could feel the cold lingering in between the struts and gaps of his figure. It had been weeks since he had donned his Ultra Magnus armor, and it was times like these where Minimus was torn wondering if he would feel more or less comfortable wearing it; within a moment, he decided he would likely feel all the more like a refrigerated slab of parts if he had to endure the exhaustive reach of the chill. He pulled the thermal cover higher up his shoulders. 

Minimus was eager and ready to lodge all of the complaints from those affected, sending memo after memo to Nautica and the rest of engineering. Minimus had faith in Nautica, as she was a hard worker and, even though she did not seem particularly happy with the flood of communications from Minimus, she was nothing if not polite and prompt in her responses. 

“I’m not a miracle worker, though,” she had warned Minimus. “This’ll take some time to fix if you want it done right.” Nautica’s logical message would not comfort the increasingly cranky and cold bots on board, however. Minimus was preparing himself for a ship-wide revolt earlier, and perhaps preparing with a bit too much excitement. Yet the tension suddenly fizzled out thanks to a suggestion Nautica and Velocity came up with. 

“I guess you could call it a ‘sleepover’?” Nautica had shyly told the shivering gathering of all those affected by the snow. “It was common on Caminus to have temporary B.E.D.s one could use to spend a night or two with Amica, and on those nights you could play games, listen to music, discuss literature, and all of that.” 

Velocity chimed in, “I’m not exactly the best at those activities, but you guys are all of our friends. The least we can do is open up our hab-suite to you when something like this happens.” 

“Right,” Nautica said. “And hopefully I can finish this up quick and join you guys for the fun.” 

She departed to do her work, with Velocity squeezing and kissing her knuckles before she left, then calling after her, “I’ll be waiting!” 

Minimus quickly but politely rejected the offer, the idea of resting in the midst of dozens of others sounding impossible to him, but the other gathered bots began to murmur in curiosity over their newfound knowledge of “sleepovers,” and it soon became clear that the idea excited them enough to pacify any of the crew’s usual penchants for chaotic reactions. Minimus was somewhat amazed to learn that most of the affected crewmembers—and some who were unaffected—joined in on the sleepover and then proceeded to act rather…calmly. 

Indeed, stillness reigned over the ship now for a record-breaking amount of time. It was so calm that Minimus had had no choice but to actually take up his usually ignored break time for once. 

Coming to Ten’s old residing quarters had a way of making Minimus feel drowsy as well. Before, it had hurt to come around, see the small space, and find himself adrift in those awful reflections on his friend’s short life, the Legislator tricked out of living a newer, happier life, with the rest of the crew. 

Now, the sadness had mellowed. Minimus’s decision to take up the model crafting Ten used to do so well helped with that. 

Minimus liked to try to make models of famous Cybertronians throughout history. He was not particularly good at crafting these figures, but that did not disturb him as much as it usually would. For one, it reassured him that Ten had, at the very least, had a gift in his life that marked him as unique and gave his identity a tangible, dignified legacy. Minimus would sometimes find himself looking at the small Ten figurine he kept in this workspace as though he were his attentive teacher.

Secondly, Minimus liked to redo the figurines he made after finishing them and seeing all of their flaws; his inner perfectionist could not be so easily calmed, after all. The slightly repetitive motions, with the occasional change, soothed him. 

To the side of his workspace, Minimus’s datapad lit up with a new message. Minimus nimbly placed his current work down to read the message.

_My shift is ending soon, and Rodimus is insistent I take some extended break time. _

_Would you mind if I spent time with you? _

_With thanks, _

_Megatron_

Most days, Minimus would have agonized over reading such a passage, nerves electrifying his entire frame, a million implications racing through his mind. Today was not one of those days. Minimus responded readily with an invitation to Ten’s old quarters. 

Minimus placed his pad back to the side and went back to using his ball-tipped tool to shape his newest experimental figure. He had chosen a light orange material without really thinking about it, and he was currently working on creating a perfectly tiny pair of hands. Time passed easily over him as he thinned out even smaller, smoother fingers. 

Soon enough, Minimus heard a rapping sound, and he called, “You may enter.” 

Megatron stepped into view, his face relaxed into something approaching a smile, and said quietly, “Hello.” 

Minimus flitted his optics up to meet Megatron’s and then quickly darted his attention back to the model he was making. He had to suppress his mouth from twitching into some unfamiliar shape—an impulse that was becoming more and more common as he spent time alone with Megatron. 

“Rodimus pushed you out of the main deck, too, then,” Minimus said. 

Megatron sat directly across from Minimus’s corner. Because of the cramped quarters, his knees bumped and brushed against Minimus’s knees. 

“He’s getting better about it,” Megatron said, “but he still covets that captain’s chair.” Megatron brought out the pad that Minimus recognized as one dedicated to his personal writings, and he placed it on the table near where Minimus’s other working materials were. 

“Oddly enough, I remember it being a rather unpleasant seat,” Minimus mused. He allowed the caps of his knees to once more graze against Megatron’s legs. 

“In fairness, you were under great duress at that time,” Megatron rejoined, and his smile took on a bittersweet, wry note. “Then again, most of us were back then.”

Megatron looked to the figure Minimus was working at and asked, “Whose likeness are you sculpting today?” 

Minimus scrutinized the thin shape of a currently headless Cybertronian figurine he had in his hands before slowly saying, “I am not sure.” 

Megatron gave him a curious look at that, so Minimus continued, “I started working on it sort of unconsciously—strange, I know—and have, I suppose, a sort of vague image in my head I wanted to create. For some reason, however, I cannot see the face in this image no matter how hard I try to imagine it.” Minimus picked up a rounded molding metal and said, “I have been thinking about giving them some spectacles though.” 

“Spectacles or no, it looks quite good. I can tell you’re improving,” Megatron said. Minimus gripped the figure tightly in his hands.

Megatron leaned closer over the workspace, propping an arm up and resting his chin on a hand in thought. He was looking at his writing pad, the look in his eyes muddled. 

“I think Rodimus was trying to run me out of the deck for quite a while,” he said. 

Minimus found himself unconsciously leaning forward a bit as if to match Megatron’s posture. He thumbed at the crooked torso of his model, asking, “What did he devise this time? If I find out he’s been using that noisemaker from that market while working—” 

“Oh, it wasn’t that.” Megatron’s face twisted a bit; he looked as though he wasn’t sure what he was about to say. “He kept trying to bring up a conversation he’d had with Drift, Swerve, and Brainstorm, actually. It was apparently about—” Megatron hesitated. “—about what the crew would be like if we were all human beings.” 

Minimus felt his brows arch. “That is…ridiculous.” 

Megatron nodded. “I said as much to him, but he wouldn’t let the subject rest.” 

“How could this even be a meaningful discussion? We all had and still have humanoid holomatter avatars loaded in the system.” 

“I think they were less concerned about their human appearances and instead debating how their personalities, careers, and lives would be now if they had been born as humans on Earth.”

Settling further into his thermal cover and pausing his crafting to place his head in his hand to listen, Minimus grimaced. 

“Oh yes,” Megatron sympathized. “Rodimus spent much time complaining about Swerve giving them his manifesto on becoming a human comedian and the trials he would face, and afterwards he did not see the irony in trying to convince me that he and Drift would be lifelong maverick adventurers and giving me their detailed plan to expand Earth’s galactic contacts until it was finally my break time.” 

“If those three were humans instead of Cybertronians,” Minimus said with a straight face, “they would be long dead considering how human life spans work.” 

Megatron burst into a low laugh at his joke. Minimus’s spark rolled with pleasure. Megatron was happy—Minimus was happy. 

Megatron calmed quickly, looking back down to his writing pad and sighing. “He also insisted on telling me that he thought if I had been born on Earth, I would have been a, I quote, ‘washed-up writer.’” Megatron rolled his optics. “I suppose he was trying to be courteous in not saying I would become a human tyrant.” 

Minimus shook his head. 

“Rodimus’s understanding of parallels is still flawed,” Minimus protested, “considering you are most certainly not a washed-up writer now.” 

“Just an unproductive one now, you mean,” Megatron said. 

“I don’t mean that at all,” Minimus huffed. He rolled a piece of malleable metal between his fingers absentmindedly. “Especially since I know you’re working on something new, which I’m still eager to hear about.” 

Megatron frowned. He placed both his arms on the workspace table as if to frame the pad containing his works in progress. 

“It feels like I haven’t picked up on that piece in ages,” Megatron said. “All because I had a crisis over how its punctuation was turning out.” 

Minimus hummed. “Punctuation is always so crucial, after all.” 

“Truly,” Megatron agreed. “In this case, its crucial enough to make me wonder if I should scrap the work entirely.” 

A small glitching sound of protest left Minimus’s throat, and he said, “Oh, don’t do that.” Then, more demurely, he added, “I know better than to want to intrude on your work, and I still don’t have great confidence in my own ability to write poetry, but I would be honored to listen to what problems you’re running into and do my utmost to help.” 

Megatron’s expression softened. “Of course,” he murmured. 

A new song had evidently begun in the background, and the gentle crooning of, “The world was white with snow…the way we felt, we never felt the snow could melt and go…” drifted over them. 

“Then,” Megatron began, “how do you feel about the function of em dashes in poetry relative to the function of, say, ellipses?”

The usual joy of presenting his thoughts on the style of language flowed into the ecstatic warmth of being trusted by Megatron, so that pleasure suffused Minimus’s now-considering brain. He brought an arm down to the workspace table, close to but not quite touching Megatron’s own arms. 

“Because I am dedicated to formal writing, I admit I tend to approach both em dashes and ellipses with some doubt. There was a time where I disliked them in all poems I read,” Minimus said thoughtfully. “As I read more, and especially as I read the poems from the book you gifted me, I find myself more conflicted. In a general sense, I would say I have usually had a preference for em dashes.” 

“Hm,” Megatron said. “The issue now is that my recent revision has replaced some of the em dashes with ellipses.”

Minimus tilted his head and curled his fingers.

“Why do you tend to prefer em dashes?” 

Minimus tapped a finger against his figurine without an identity and explained, “In fairness, my preference for one over the other does depend on the kind of tone the poem has, but—if I’m honest, my partiality to dashes has to do with their concrete benefits. To me, dashes have an appearance that conveys something more certain and strong than ellipses. By design, the em dash has a very clear structure where the ellipses necessitates gaps and absent space.

“Doesn’t the entire point of ellipses lie in its omission of things? In that case, the ellipsis seems to be a sign of a failure, a miscommunication between rational thought and your ability to put voice to that thought, and when I see them doing that, it feels sometimes a bit too naked for my tastes.”

“An ellipsis can omit,” Megatron said, “but I also think sometimes in their absenting of meaning they can produce something new and quite interesting. Since ellipses so often seem to convey actual silence whereas dashes seem to necessarily invite more speech, isn't the ellipsis’s main appeal in its inherent silence, its pre-language state, but its insistence on still showing that meaning was or still could be there?”

Minimus edged forward on his seat and felt his legs bump into Megatron’s again as he responded, “Perhaps. In many ways, though, I just want the frank meaning from a lot of poetry, hence my distaste for em dashes and ellipses in the first place.”

Megatron looked down at his writing pad, pensive. “I find myself also yearning for frank meaning as I grow older,” Megatron conceded haltingly. “But then, so many of our greatest poems would not be as well appreciated if they didn’t keep a great deal obscured, would they?” He sighed. “Of course, the real problem isn’t just the punctuation; it’s that I’m suffering from a mental block every time I look at it.”

Minimus looked carefully at Megatron. “What kind of poem is it?” 

A significant silence followed. 

Finally, Megatron said, “A love poem.” 

Minimus’s optics widened. His first instinct was to avoid Megatron’s gaze, so he looked down to the figurine he has been working on. He felt suddenly embarrassed at having mentioned failures of speech earlier because now speech failed him as well. He had virtually no experience with romantic love, and he’d had the audacity to say he could assist Megatron. He was warm enough now to not need his thermal cover. 

As Minimus stared at the figure however, obsessing over the gleaming blue circular detail over where this nameless miniature’s chest and spark chamber would be, he thought again about his wish for clearer meanings in this unknowable universe. He took a deep breath in and then looked back to Megatron while stretching his fingers out on the table.

“Earlier, I said my preference for one or the other depends on the poem’s tone,” Minimus said, “so there have been times where I have liked the use of ellipses. 

“I remember, when I was much younger, Dominus once brought me to a conference held by rhetoricians across the northern city-states of Cyberton. Everyone there, especially Dominus, was so brilliant and knew much more than I did, and I listened to many bots give talks. One of them spoke about a divide between language and the real that could never be brokered. I was so scandalized at the time because they were praising things like fragments, em dashes, and ellipses.

“They emphasized that approaching the real was the purpose of language, but it was almost impossible to do so because language was, by nature, symbolic and organized and most certainly not the actually intangible nature of living and being. The ellipsis approximates that haze that makes just being and existing so fragmented, so fragile, and incapable of being symbolized, he said.” 

Minimus swallowed, edging forward, and the exterior of his hand just kissed the exteriors of Megatron’s hand.

“That all made me very uncomfortable. I liked reading and writing and communicating back then—and still now to a degree—because it was not the real thing, I suppose. Genuine living could be absolutely crushing and confused me so much. The standardizations behind language were easier, purposeful, and everything I thought was necessary to be like those bots and Dominus at the conference.

“Looking back and forward in time, it’s that part of reality that I still fear, but then I think that all those bots at the conference are gone now while I get to do more than just write memos now, and I want something beyond writing those memos as well…something real and something frank like we’ve said.

“When I think that,” Minimus said with a shuddering breath, “I think that I prefer the gentler silence of ellipses in love poems.”

Minimus held his breath and searched Megatron’s face.

“Your insight about the appearance of ellipses was brilliant, you know,” Megatron said, his optics shining, open…encouraging. The cold previously trapped within Minimus dispersed.

With that, Minimus lightly pressed his hand forward, extending over Megatron’s own tentatively. Megatron slowly rotated his hand to the side, caressing and pushing Minimus’s hand up with a soft playfulness, and then eventually left his palms up and open. Minimus ran his fingers across the side of Megatron’s hand before laying his own palm delicately against Megatron’s palm. He angled his hand slightly and then squeezed down experimentally and felt a snug responding squeeze. Minimus dragged his hand back just slightly, trying to feel Megatron’s individual fingers, and Megatron curled his fingers up to brush Minimus’s. Then, finally, the lacing of their fingers together, their hands locking together. 

It was rhapsodic.

It struck him then that every time they were together they disclosed something new to one another, devotion sang in every gesture they made towards one another, and their profferances to one another were many. Now, the intimacy laden in their hands twined together shook him to his core. Internally they both drifted into the penumbra where their unknowingness spilled into clarity, and that sensibility sweetened into a tentative, dreamy bliss. Beyond speech, the moving curve of music rippled between them. They were content.

“Shall we get to work then?” Megatron asked, smiling.

A small smile breaking across his face in return, Minimus said, “I would love to.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is another MiniMegs Week prompt combo, as it continues the very very vague Christmas/winter holiday theme, the AU theme with the duplicate Lost Light, and now also adds in the music prompt, a tongue-in-cheek discussion of another AU prompt (ignore Minimus's and Megatron's grumblings, I love Humanformers AUs), and the free prompt, and the free prompt I used to guide this chapter was...."grammar/stylistics" lmao. Glad to put my English degree to some use at least. Because I'm pretentious, I couldn't stop myself from referencing Our Robot Lord and Savior for this fic centered around a very God-focused poem, and of course I couldn't resist being a little post-structuralist.
> 
> I also just had to end this thing with at least some sort wink and nod at the two having performed the Conjunx Ritus over the course of the entire fic and them eventually/soon? becoming the married couple they pretty much already were. 
> 
> I'm just glad this is finally done! Again thanks to everyone who's paid attention to this little thing, and I'm so happy I got to participate in the week at least a little bit, but now I'm especially happy the writing of this is done so I can finally go read what everyone else has written and give you all the love you deserve too.


End file.
